What happens when we put kindness at the center of our leadership? There's plenty of hard evidence that kind leaders get better results.
Emma Seppala, Ph.D, a Research Scientist at Stanford University and the Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, details several studies in Being a Kind Boss Pays Off:
A kind leader may actually be good for "followers" hearts. In fact, a study out of the Karolinska Institute conducted on over 3,000 employees found that a leader’s qualities were associated with incidence of heart disease in their employees.
Employees feel greater trust with someone who is kind. Harvard Business School’s Amy Cuddy and her research partners have also shown that leaders who project warmth—even before establishing their competence—are more effective than those who lead with their toughness and skill. Why? One reason is trust.
Employees are inspired by kindness. Jonathan Haidt at New York University Stern School of Business shows in his research that when leaders are self-sacrificing, their employees experience being moved and inspired. As a consequence, the employees feel more loyal and … [Read more...]

I woke up today with an earworm. It’s driving me nuts.
No doubt you’ve experienced annoying earworms too. You know, that “little fragment, often a bit of the chorus of the song, that just plays and replays like it's stuck on loop in your head,” explains Elizabeth Margulis, director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas and author of On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind.
Researchers have found that over 91% of us get a song stuck in our minds—earworms—at least once a week. The term "earworm" originally comes from a translation of the German word 'Ohrwurm'.
If you’re a songwriter, earworms are the stuff of dreams. You want your song to stick in people’s minds. Songs like "What Does the Fox Say?" by Ylvis, and The Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out?" are tunes researchers say generate earworms. I've noticed that Meghan Trainor’s "All About That Bass" seems to catalyze earworms in old and young alike.
But alas, (most) leaders are not songwriters. If we’re not careful, repetition of catchphrases or buzzwords become earworms that can blow our chance to inspire others or worse, close followers' ears completely.
Earworms at Work
As an entry-level employee, I … [Read more...]

I’ve been reflecting on being queenly lately.
I’ll ‘fess up. Like most everyone I know, I caught a nasty bug that drove me to bed, giving me a chance to guilty-pleasure-binge on Phillippa Gregory’s novels brought to TV, BBC miniseries-style.
Gregory’s historical fiction involves witchy queens who are often brilliantly strategic. Usually, the queens (or queen-wanna-bees) can give porn-stars a run for their money. After all, the queen’s ascension and power depends on her sexual prowess as much as anything else.
Once my flu-haze lifted, a Huffington Post article caught my eye because it mentions women being treated “like queens.”
A Saudi Arabian historian, speaking to his nation's ban on female drivers, says women who drive in other countries such as the United States don't care if they're raped and that sexual violence "is no big deal to them." Instead, in Saudi Arabia (a place I once resided), women are treated like queens. Case in point, he says, women are driven around by the men of the family or male chauffeurs.
Before exclaiming outrage, let’s look at how we in the West might be getting “queen” royally wrong too.
How (Some) Americans Think-Like-A-Queen
Reading … [Read more...]

Elliana Grace Hentoff-Killian is the world's youngest female human cannonball. Just twenty-one years old, she performs with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show "Built to Amaze." She shoots out of a canon at 65 miles an hour, that's a g-force of 7, similar to what astronauts experience reentering earth's atmosphere.
Last year on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Elliana described what being part of a circus is like. I fell a little in love with her and listened as other circus performers, past and present, called to weigh in. They explained that to thrive in circus culture you must:
Trust others with your life.
Embrace global diversity - human and animal.
Keep yourself mentally and physically well.
Remember, you're in the greatest show on earth.
Imagine if all work cultures were all like that! Imagine what we'd accomplish and the problems we'd solve!
Cannonball Insights We Can (& Should) All Use
Elliana also shared three amazing insights about her unusual work that I believe we can apply to leadership. Take the leap with me. Let's emulate the world's youngest female human cannonball.
1. When Done Right...Fun & Fabulous
"(NPR … [Read more...]

“It is the heart that does the giving; the fingers only let go.”— Nigerian saying
Choosing "growing greatness" as a tagline for my business was intentional. But greatness can easily get distorted in our minds. Greatness sometimes seems synonymous with celebrity or fame, wealth or power. Greatness can become: great job, great car, great house, or great bank account.
Let me set the record straight. I want to you have all you need. I want you to be well and succeed. I want you to shine and soar. Yet greatness to me is not really about what you have or what you achieve: it's what you give.
Interestingly, researchers have found that keeping our giving precise, narrow, focused on just one person rather than thousands or millions in need motivates us more. NPR reports on one great study, Why Your Brain Wants to Help One Child in Need But Not Millions, that illuminates why.
As a gentle reminder that greatness isn't what you have but what you give, here are eight quotes from some of the world’s greatest givers, and a couple from little ol’ me (that I’m sure came from someone who gave me the ideas).
Gentle reminders about your greatness.
Giving is the purpose of living. “No one … [Read more...]

Yoda I was.
It was July at the county fair in the early 80s, and I was about 11. The thick, rubber Yoda mask and long woven robe were almost unbearable in the mid-summer heat, but I had a job to do. Who better than the omniscient Yoda to attract fairgoers to the American Cancer Society booth to learn about breast cancer screenings and early detection? There, the ACS volunteers, and … [Read More...]

Last week I heard myself give a textbook answer to the question, “What’s the difference between leaders and managers?” I won’t bore you by sharing what I responded because even if you don’t read as many articles and books on leadership as I do, you’d intuitively sense that there must be more to truly great leaders.
After my acceptable answer popped toad-like from my lips, I … [Read More...]

“Oh @*#+!” I berate myself just prior to taking a trip recently. Why did I put off some work I wanted to get done before leaving? Why did I wait until the last minute to buy gifts I wanted to take with me?
“Oh joy! You procrastinated,” proclaims my meanie-in-mind, “I get to run wild right now!”
My meanie-in-mind uses words like "always" and "never." It lies glibly and … [Read More...]

What happens when we put kindness at the center of our leadership? There's plenty of hard evidence that kind leaders get better results.
Emma Seppala, Ph.D, a Research Scientist at Stanford University and the Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, details several studies in Being a Kind Boss Pays Off:
A … [Read More...]